Side dishes · Vegetable sides

Green bean casserole

Name: Green bean casserole
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 700 g green beans, trimmed; 3 tbsp butter; 300 g crimini mushroom, sliced; 1 onion yellow onions, finely chopped; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1/4 cup all-purpose flour; 1 2/3 cups whole milk; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 120 g onion rings, crushed

Green beans in a mushroom cream sauce under a crisp onion top, made from scratch rather than from a can of soup. It is one of the most searched side dishes in the country and it eats far better this way, though it is still a rich dish and the number says so.

Time: 50 min (20 prep + 30 cook)
Servings: 8
Per serving: 177 kcal
Protein: 6 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

700 g green beans, trimmed700 g
3 tbsp butter40 g
300 g crimini mushroom, sliced300 g
1 onion yellow onions, finely chopped120 g
3 cloves garlic, minced9 g
1/4 cup all-purpose flour30 g
1 2/3 cups whole milk400 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g

Top

120 g onion rings, crushed120 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Blanch the beans in boiling salted water 4 minutes, then drop them into cold water. They should still squeak — they get another half hour in the oven.
Cook the mushrooms in the butter over high heat until they have released their water and browned, 8 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and soften.
Stir in the flour, cook a minute, then add the milk gradually and simmer until it thickens. Season well.
Fold the beans through, tip into a dish, scatter the crushed onion rings over and bake at 190°C (375°F) for 25–30 minutes until bubbling and browned.

Why brown the mushrooms first?

Mushrooms are 90% water. Cook them properly and it evaporates and concentrates; add them raw to a sauce and it thins out and tastes of nothing. This is the difference between the scratch version and the can.

Why this score

solidly filling

Low energy density — a lot of food for the calories.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

13% of kcal

81% water

23 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1414 kcal goes into the pot, 1726 g of ingredients comes out as ~1450 g of food → 98 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 98
Protein: (13%); 3 g
Fat: (41%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (45%); 11 g
of which sugar: 4 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 194 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.